December 24

Seth proposed to me on Christmas Eve!

Details to come soon. For now, a few ring pictures

It was phenomenal

Took some pics

I am FAR from a professional photographer (I am taking a photography class next semester though, so boss) but when the sweetest lady and dear friend at my church asked me to take pictures of her and her daughters for Christmas, I couldn't refuse!

In fact, that kind of practice is just what I need. I've done "photo shoots" like this a few times before.No pressure or obligation since I'm not charging and they're not expecting a pro's work- win win for an amateur and her camera. We had a blast. It was a perfect day- fresh snow but not freezing cold. And they are so
lovely!

 

 

 

We hang traditions on a tree

Christmas trees. Our family doesn't really enjoy the putting-up process (or the taking-down process for that matter) but we love having a tree up. Sometimes we go classy, leaving the silly/homemade/tacky ornaments in the box. But this year it was my job to decorate the tree.

::evil laugh::

No, just kidding. I kept it pretty classy.

I mean, if a headless ballerina counts as classy, then yeah.
You see, this ballerina. She's essential. She goes up every year. She used to spin in circles but now she just hangs. Basically she's dysfunctional and she has no head. But that's tradition, right?

Also, every year my Aunt Kathy from California gets us a new ornament. Usually they are these cool intricate wood-carved ornaments like this:

But this year, the artist that she buys them from started to work with plexiglass. Cool look right?

She also sent me an ornament that I had given to my Grandma when I was young. She passed away last summer and it's super nice to have this ornament to remember her by! (She collected turtles.)

Anyway, Christmas traditions are nice. I like them. I look forward to making new ones in the future with my own family!

Such a wallflower

My craft room walls were just begging for some more fun, so this weekend I pumped out these little cuties. My wise boyfriend reminded me that they were especially awesome because they don't require any water. Thank you, honey, for that insight.

I got the original idea for these flowers here. The red flower on the left is as close as interpretation of the original as my fat fingers could pump out, then the rest were random variations on color and petal shape and the like. I have greater expectations and future goals for these flowers. {SECRETS!!!} But for now, they will float along my craft room wall and make me smile whenever I see them. Maybe one day the whole wall will be filled. That's rather ambitious though...

{The other wall already had some neat jazz on it, like some pretty pictures and cute sayings and some boxes on a string of lights that I also made on a boring weekend much like this one, about 2 years ago.}

Creepy Yet Cute

The weirdest thing I have ever seen for a long distance couple.

Half of me is tempted to buy it for Seth. But then the smarter, prettier, and more humble side of me remembers that I totally don't want my pillow to glow when he goes to bed. After all, between the hour time difference between us and the fact that I'm 90 years old and can't maintain consciousness past 11:30, this entirely impractical. And yet again, totally creepy. 

1.5 years

A photo from 2 summers ago, taken not long after we first made if "official." Its been an awesome 18 months full of Skype chats, visits, two summers together, lots of learning and growing and falling in love.

You can see it in his eyes

You can tell he is so mad at me for making him dress up like a girl. Maybe he's still bitter regarding the fact that some would call his name a "girl name." I mean, I think Moxy is manly enough of a name for a dog who's a whole heaping 12lbs.

What a pretty princess I mean prince.

Equal parts thankful and scared

I will preface this all by saying that Seth LIED TO ME! That boyfriend of mine told me  he was coming for Thanksgiving on Wednesday and would get home about the time I got home from work.
 
All lies.

The whole world except for me knew that he was actually coming Tuesday night. So its Tuesday. I get off work. I run a few errands. I get home around 5:30 and its raining and already super dark. Let me pause here for a moment to just say that I have a deep, deep fear of some creeper's face popping into my window on a dark, stormy night and then attacking me.

Back to the story. I get home. I come upstairs to put my stuff down in my room. I flick on the lights and there's Seth, standing outside my second story bedroom window, being all like "Roarrrrr!" with a cute face. And there I am, piddling {not really} and screaming bloody murder and trying to register what just happened. And there's my parents, right behind me with cameras and giggles. I was out of sorts for a while after that.

Finally he was like, "Are you gonna let me in or what?"
Behold- Mom captured a picture from the stairs:

 I was less freaked out after that:

But anyway, after that scare, the rest of the week was phenomenal. We hung out with each other, friends, and family. We ate great food. All the friends helped my friend Ashley get her parent's minivan out of the mud. That was awesome fun.We reflected on how awesome our God is and how he has blessed us so much. It was great.

Everyone was so thankful that I helped so much by documenting this mud fest instead of pushing the van. I did help, really!

A reminder

I made my first stamp the other day.

Yes I know, it looks like a kindergartner's handwriting. Its hard to carve backwards letters!

Anyway, the stamp is meant as a reminder of I Corinthians 13, the Bible's chapter about love. Verse 13 is a reminder that there is nothing greater than love: "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love"

Love is so important that the good deeds that I do in its absence are worthless. (Verses 1-3)
Love doesn't brag. (Verse 4) What do I have to brag about anyway, compared to who Christ is and what He has done for me?
Love doesn't keep tabs of all the bad things others do to me. (Verse 5)
Love doesn't fail. Because of love I can't just get tired and decide to throw in the towel. (Verse 8)

 Yep, this kindergarten writing stamp is a necessary reminder for every day.

Seriously Owl City, You're Phenomenal

Saw Owl City last night. He (Adam Young) was endearing, entertaining, and he sounded great live!

I love his music.
I love his awkward wit.
I love his testimony.
I love his new song Lonely Lullaby that he sang at the concert. Could there be a more beautifully sad song? I think not.

Oh I also love this song by He Is We featuring Owl City. Sappy things don't usually make me feel sappy. But then there is this video, and it totally breaks all of my self-imposed anti sappy rules.

Oh another thing I love about him is that Taylor Swift's song Enchanted is about him. I don't even like T Swizzle but somehow the fact that she is "wonderstruck" by meeting him is super adorable.

That's it. That's the sum of my cheesy rant. I'd rather love the people I actually know more than famous people I will never meet anyway. But it's always fun to have a celebrity crush list. Adam, welcome to the club. Meet Grady Sizemore, Georges St. Pierre, and Ryan Gosling.

(I still love you the most, Seth)

This old window

I picked up this old window a few weeks ago and have had major ideas running through my head since. But it needed some major overhaulin' before anything could be done with it. In lieu of typical Tuesday Craft Night, my dear friend Emma and I decided to tackle this "pane" in the neck (hehe.) Honestly, anyway, craft night- which has goals of being nights of friends creating magic together- usually ends up with Emma, Becky, and me sitting around looking at Pinterest together while my craft table sits lonely and neglected.

Anyway, (forgive my constant mind detours.) Emma and I spent quite some time prying apart the interior part of the frame that was just adding bulk and weight. Then one of the panes of glass broke. But I thought to myself, "No, this is a good thing. I only want the top pane anyway. The bottom pane just adds more bulk." I know, I know, my thoughts are so exciting.

So we got to work taking the broken pane out. That Emma is a beast and a blessing! She got right to town. The whole time, the lab geek in me was PLEADING for my safety glasses. Praise the Lord though, no glass chips in any eyes!

The sad thing is, though, one corner of the frame is rotted out, and much more than I initially expected. This may rule out coffee table, but I'm keeping my hopes up. The result of this Tuesday Craft Demolition Night is a lot of shards of glass and two beast mode girls.

Throw some 'fetti, make it rain

To celebrate 11-11-11, our lab decided to have some fun with balloons filled with confetti {read: confetti equals all those little paper circles we stole from dozens of the hole punches in the building.}

So 11:11am rolled around and we all stopped our lab work to throw the balloons up in the air and pop them above our heads. It was pure magic. (We then spent 11:12 to 11:14 sweeping up the floor.) Oh, life in a lab. Good stuff.

Anyway, I took a few balloons home because I just didn't want the party to end. My dog may or may not have gotten a hold of one of them, and then may or may not have almost had a heart attack when it popped. I dunno though. With the other one, my dad and I had some fun.

I heart him.

(Not to belabor the point or anything, but I'm pretty sure anytime I ever see this picture...

...I'll go insane, throw some glitter, make it rain.)

Oh, the endless possibilities

Last week I went out to eat with some friends to this awesome restaurant in Cleveland called Melt. Like gourmet grilled cheese, cool atmosphere, the dude from Man vs. Food took THE CHALLENGE there, etc... Anyway, this is all off topic. The point is, my bestfriend Becky and I parked in a parking lot behind some stores and spotted some awesome, decent condition windows by the dumpster. So we stole one to craft with. And oh my word, the possibilities are endless. Behold:

So yeah, its a white window. It's big and clunky and I love it. I have all sorts of ideas for what we could do with it, but we'll have to see what we officially decide to do with it.

What I really want to do is make a table out of it...

{oh hey, I have that rug too! It's destiny.}
If the coffee table doesn't work out (because my craftsmanship skills are slightly lacking,) I wouldn't mind doing something like these:

 

Printed paper, eh?

Learn how to etch glass?

Perhaps a corkboard/ chalkboard/ photo frame/ organization combo?

Whatever we decide, I'm sure it will either turn out boss or we will break some glass out of anger in the process. It will be phenomenal.

idea images via Pinterest

Gosh I Love Fall

It's November in Ohio. It's 60 degrees and sunny and I'm not wearing a coat. I spend a lovely weekend with my church family and my family family. So yeah, life's good.

I have to soak in the last of the colors and sunshine before it gets gloomy and cold for 6 months straight (it has a tendency to do that here in Cleveland...)

A Lovely Visit

A lovely visit to see my boy.
A lot of hours on the Megabus to Chicago and in the car to his house and then to the Great Dairy State, then back to his house, then back to Chicago, then back on the Megabus, etc...

Downtown Chicago, the city that I love to bits

We got a massively flat tire. God is good though. It could have happened in the middle of a cornfield in Wisconsin or on a shady street on the outskirts of Chicago. But it happened just a few minutes away from where we were meeting Seth's dad and stepmom for dinner. Seth is a maverick and knew how to change it, but it was still nice to have his dad there to help out.

Have you ever seen the game on Whose Line is it Anyway where they play a movie silently and someone has to provide the commentary? That is what Seth did with these 3 guys chatting outside the window of a Starbucks we were at downtown. It was a riot! In his dialogue, the businessman on the right was actually a drug dealer. (Do you see the Target bag he's holding in his crossed arms? Totally some drugs in there. It was super hardcore to watch it go down.)

I've said it before- and if anyone ever gets sick of me hearing it, then too bad- but I love this boy so so much. Well worth the long trip.

The end

The Nerd in Me

I love science. I also love when science meets beauty, when the left and right sides of your brain collide.

A few years ago I discovered Nikon's Microscopy Small World competition. Some of the things you can see under a microscope are crazy beautiful! Apparently, this contest has been going on since 1977.

These are just a few of the super cool slides from this competition. Check out the rest of them here! I love trying to guess what I am actually looking at from a microscopic level. It's a good time waster of a website, but I justify it because I feel like I'm learning so much whenever I click around there! It reminds me how intricate and detailed God's handiwork is. So amazing!

 

You're Such a Grownup, Pup

Happy third birthday to my awesome dog, Moxy. He's so mature, he even wears bowties now.

 He may still try to roll in poo and and shred toilet paper rolls occasionally, but like I said before, he's awesome and mature.

To celebrate his birthday, he took the liberty of eating all of the cat's food. And then I tied a ribbon around his neck and made him sit still for pictures, which I know he loved!